If your website isn’t performing as well as you’d like, it may be time to do a website audit. When you audit your website you’re essentially looking for elements that are working, as well as elements that aren’t working and need to be updated. We’ve put together a website audit checklist of 10 items for your technical virtual assistant to follow

1. Check your branding.

Branding is your use of color, typography, visuals, and even favicons. In addition, you should review your “about us page” to see if it’s telling the story clearly of who you are and what you can do for your clients. Have you included testimonials, and success stories to keep your visitor interested?

2. Check your design.

The look and feel of your website has a lot to do with the layout, whether content is organized well, the white space you have on your website, and your CTAs (calls to action). Do they stand out? Do you have too much old-school design on your website? How can you modernize it?

3. Check your coding.

Do you have an updated sitemap file? Are you still using frames and old-school coding that doesn’t work today? Do your URLs accurately describe what is on each page? Are you using headers and subheaders properly?

4. Make sure it’s usable.

It’s always a good idea to follow best practices when it comes to layout. If you’re not sure, you can ask your technical virtual assistant to read Google’s advice to webmasters as well as the W3C consortium to see what they recommend. Right now, the menu should go at the top, with certain things expected in the footer and sidebars.

5. Do a content audit.

If you have any old content that is not high quality, engaging, and relevant, you will want to work on updating it. Then focus on continuing to be consistent with adding fresh content.

6. Make sure your keywords are focused.

In the old days you might have put a lot of keywords on a page to attract your audience. Today, keywords are important but they need to be used in titles, headers, and subheaders. They should only be used sparingly in the content, which should be written first for your audience. But ensure that when you do use keywords you’re using the right ones for your audience.

7. Check your on-page SEO.

This is all about how your page titles are written. They should represent exactly what’s in the content. Clickbait is not appreciated even though a lot of even mainstream press uses that trick to get you to click. Focus on writing good page titles, URLs for each page, and meta descriptions, which are still very important, as are meta titles.

8. Make sure you’re using social media correctly.

Make it easy for your audience to share your content on social media networks. Connect your website to Google, YouTube, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Twitter, and more depending on what your audience likes to use. Plus, ensure that you’re engaging with social media too.

9. Check if your website is mobile.

There are no more excuses for not having a mobile website. Your main website should have a responsive design that works on mobile first and then on desktop. This will require you to have a clean design, which is great for everyone.

10. See what’s out of date.

If there is anything on your site that is out of date or no longer necessary, get rid of it. This includes things such as keyword-stuffed articles, duplicate content, a ton of ads, and more.